AlienBBC v0.11 Released

[Jules Taplin]

Hi folks.

AlienBBC v0.11 is now available for download at the usual place
(http://www.mrtickle.org/alienbbc.html).

For those of you who don't already know, AlienBBC is a plugin for
Slimserver that allows streaming of pretty much all of the BBC Radio
content, as well as a few other bits and pieces. It runs on Linux
platforms, has been massaged into running on MacOS/X platforms (although
it's still a bit of a struggle), and we're still working on getting it
to operate on Windows platforms.

For everybody that's already running it, the new version has the
following changes:

* Plugin now registers as a 'Radio' plugin. So it'll appear in the
'Internet Radio' menu now.
* The transcoder proxy now buffers data if it can't deliver it. This
means that streams can be paused indefinately.
* Transcoder should consume less CPU, particularly when idle.
* Fixed link to spacer gif in Web Interface.
* BBC Radio 2 A to Z Parser. Contains a few more shows not seen on the
'Listen Again' menu.
* Added new section for ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
content. Very limited compared to BBC Content, though.
* The transcoder proxy will now try a couple of paths to find a version
of lame. Should save a bunch of people editing it every version

So... go grab it. As always... if you run into trouble... send me a
note. The feedback address is at the bottom of pretty much every webpage
on the site.


Best Regards,


Jules

[Bill Burns]

Jules Taplin wrote:

> For those of you who don't already know, AlienBBC is a plugin for
> Slimserver that allows streaming of pretty much all of the BBC Radio
> content, as well as a few other bits and pieces. It runs on Linux
> platforms, has been massaged into running on MacOS/X platforms (although
> it's still a bit of a struggle), and we're still working on getting it
> to operate on Windows platforms.

Is the Windows version an active part of the project? I'd really like
to have AlienBBC, and I have to decide whether to wait for the Windows
version or set up a Linux box. Any idea on the timeframe for Windows?

--
Bill Burns
Long Island NY USA
mailto:billb (AT) ftldesign (DOT) com

[Scott Culverhouse]

Jules,

Nice work, this app is getting better and better.

Two question/points:-

1) On the Listen again - Radio 1, I am seeing names followed by
colons I guess they should be followed by Mon, Tue etc etc. But I am
seeing MON, TUE etc as seperate entries.

2) What url are these passed from because westwood is not listed.

Scott


On Sat, 27 Nov 2004 20:24:23 +0000
Jules Taplin wrote:

> Hi folks.
>
> AlienBBC v0.11 is now available for download at the usual place
> (http://www.mrtickle.org/alienbbc.html).
>
> For those of you who don't already know, AlienBBC is a plugin for
> Slimserver that allows streaming of pretty much all of the BBC Radio
> content, as well as a few other bits and pieces. It runs on Linux
> platforms, has been massaged into running on MacOS/X platforms (although
> it's still a bit of a struggle), and we're still working on getting it
> to operate on Windows platforms.
>
> For everybody that's already running it, the new version has the
> following changes:
>
> * Plugin now registers as a 'Radio' plugin. So it'll appear in the
> 'Internet Radio' menu now.
> * The transcoder proxy now buffers data if it can't deliver it. This
> means that streams can be paused indefinately.
> * Transcoder should consume less CPU, particularly when idle.
> * Fixed link to spacer gif in Web Interface.
> * BBC Radio 2 A to Z Parser. Contains a few more shows not seen on the
> 'Listen Again' menu.
> * Added new section for ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
> content. Very limited compared to BBC Content, though.
> * The transcoder proxy will now try a couple of paths to find a version
> of lame. Should save a bunch of people editing it every version
>
> So... go grab it. As always... if you run into trouble... send me a
> note. The feedback address is at the bottom of pretty much every webpage
> on the site.
>
>
> Best Regards,
>
>
> Jules
>

[Jules Taplin]

Hi Bill.

It's complicated. It's looking like a Windows version will require
slimserver changes, changes to the mplayer codebase itself, as well as
substantial changes to AlienBBC. Whilst it's looking like this will move
the design forward quite a long way, it's clearly not something that's
entirely in our control.

When it comes down to it, Window's stream handling is just plain
inferior, and that's the root cause of the problem

So... I think we'll eventually get there... but it won't necessarily be
fast. You also need to bear in mind that neither myself or Craig really
have any intention of USING a Windows port, so the 'scratch your itch'
theory of Open Source software development just isn't very strong in
this case



-- Jules

Bill Burns wrote:

> Jules Taplin wrote:
>
>> For those of you who don't already know, AlienBBC is a plugin for
>> Slimserver that allows streaming of pretty much all of the BBC Radio
>> content, as well as a few other bits and pieces. It runs on Linux
>> platforms, has been massaged into running on MacOS/X platforms
>> (although it's still a bit of a struggle), and we're still working on
>> getting it to operate on Windows platforms.
>
>
> Is the Windows version an active part of the project? I'd really like
> to have AlienBBC, and I have to decide whether to wait for the Windows
> version or set up a Linux box. Any idea on the timeframe for Windows?
>

[Jules Taplin]

Hi Scott.

Yes... the Mon, Tue, etc stuff is annoying. But hard to know how to
parse better.

The Listen Again pages are all parsed from the output of the 'BBC Radio
Player'. So... the Radio 1 content comes from this page:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/aod/radio1_promo.shtml

It doesn't list 'westwood'.

There is also another page for Radio 1 content -
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio1/listen/index.shtml

That appears to be loosely similar, but with some additional content.
Maybe a parser for that would sort it out. Personally, though, I've had
a big problem with Radio 1 since Matthew Bannister came in and purged
all of the good programming from it in the early 90's, so I guess I was
never mentally that keen to encourage them *grin*.

I'll stick a specific Radio 1 Parser on the to-do list.

-- Jules

Scott Culverhouse wrote:

>Jules,
>
>Nice work, this app is getting better and better.
>
>Two question/points:-
>
> 1) On the Listen again - Radio 1, I am seeing names followed by
>colons I guess they should be followed by Mon, Tue etc etc. But I am
>seeing MON, TUE etc as seperate entries.
>
> 2) What url are these passed from because westwood is not listed.
>
>Scott
>
>
>On Sat, 27 Nov 2004 20:24:23 +0000
>Jules Taplin wrote:
>
>
>
>>Hi folks.
>>
>>AlienBBC v0.11 is now available for download at the usual place
>>(http://www.mrtickle.org/alienbbc.html).
>>
>>For those of you who don't already know, AlienBBC is a plugin for
>>Slimserver that allows streaming of pretty much all of the BBC Radio
>>content, as well as a few other bits and pieces. It runs on Linux
>>platforms, has been massaged into running on MacOS/X platforms (although
>>it's still a bit of a struggle), and we're still working on getting it
>>to operate on Windows platforms.
>>
>>For everybody that's already running it, the new version has the
>>following changes:
>>
>>* Plugin now registers as a 'Radio' plugin. So it'll appear in the
>>'Internet Radio' menu now.
>>* The transcoder proxy now buffers data if it can't deliver it. This
>>means that streams can be paused indefinately.
>>* Transcoder should consume less CPU, particularly when idle.
>>* Fixed link to spacer gif in Web Interface.
>>* BBC Radio 2 A to Z Parser. Contains a few more shows not seen on the
>>'Listen Again' menu.
>>* Added new section for ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
>>content. Very limited compared to BBC Content, though.
>>* The transcoder proxy will now try a couple of paths to find a version
>>of lame. Should save a bunch of people editing it every version
>>
>>So... go grab it. As always... if you run into trouble... send me a
>>note. The feedback address is at the bottom of pretty much every webpage
>>on the site.
>>
>>
>>Best Regards,
>>
>>
>>Jules
>>

[John Gorst]

Jules Taplin wrote:

> * Plugin now registers as a 'Radio' plugin. So it'll appear in the
> 'Internet Radio' menu now.

A lot more user friendly!

> * The transcoder proxy now buffers data if it can't deliver it. This
> means that streams can be paused indefinately.

What used to happen before? I just went back to the 0.10 release and I
seemed to be able to pause (although I only tried for a few seconds)

> * Transcoder should consume less CPU, particularly when idle.

Definetly uses less when idle. Not sure about when active yet.

The only problem with this release if that if I set it not to use lame
it produces white noise on my both machines which run softsqueeze
(havent got a squeezebox of my own to try it with yet - awaiting
christmas for that!). The cpu useage of transcoder_proxy also shoots up
to about 80%

I want to be able to stream wav for two reasons:
(1) my machine doesn handle transcoding into mp3 very well (only a celeron)
(2) converting into mp3 only makes the poor bbc sound quality even worse!

Any ideas what could be causing this? In 0.10 it works fine (I have
tried reverting back)

Mandrake 10, mplayer, softsqueeze (linux and windows), latest slimserver
nightly

[Bill Burns]

Jules Taplin wrote:

> It's complicated. It's looking like a Windows version will require
> slimserver changes, changes to the mplayer codebase itself, as well
> as substantial changes to AlienBBC. Whilst it's looking like this
> will move the design forward quite a long way, it's clearly not
> something that's entirely in our control.

Jules: Thanks for your candour - I'll start setting up a Linux box :-)

--
Bill Burns
Long Island NY USA
mailto:billb (AT) ftldesign (DOT) com

[Jules Taplin]

Before Craig added the buffering fixes... data would be dropped once
slimserver filled it's internal buffers. They were good for about a
minute in mp3 mode.

Erm. Right. Don't know about the white noise. I don't think I've made
any changes that should make a difference to the non-lame path. Curious.
I take it that if you leave it at AlienBBC 0.11, and just use the 0.10
transcoder, it works OK for you?

-- Jules




John Gorst wrote:

> Jules Taplin wrote:
>
>> * Plugin now registers as a 'Radio' plugin. So it'll appear in the
>> 'Internet Radio' menu now.
>
>
> A lot more user friendly!
>
>> * The transcoder proxy now buffers data if it can't deliver it. This
>> means that streams can be paused indefinately.
>
>
> What used to happen before? I just went back to the 0.10 release and I
> seemed to be able to pause (although I only tried for a few seconds)
>
>> * Transcoder should consume less CPU, particularly when idle.
>
>
> Definetly uses less when idle. Not sure about when active yet.
>
> The only problem with this release if that if I set it not to use lame
> it produces white noise on my both machines which run softsqueeze
> (havent got a squeezebox of my own to try it with yet - awaiting
> christmas for that!). The cpu useage of transcoder_proxy also shoots
> up to about 80%
>
> I want to be able to stream wav for two reasons:
> (1) my machine doesn handle transcoding into mp3 very well (only a
> celeron)
> (2) converting into mp3 only makes the poor bbc sound quality even worse!
>
> Any ideas what could be causing this? In 0.10 it works fine (I have
> tried reverting back)
>
> Mandrake 10, mplayer, softsqueeze (linux and windows), latest
> slimserver nightly
>
>

[Jules Taplin]

No problem Bill.

I've no doubt we'll get there in the end... but I don't really have a
firm idea of when.


-- Jules


Bill Burns wrote:

> Jules Taplin wrote:
>
>> It's complicated. It's looking like a Windows version will require
>> slimserver changes, changes to the mplayer codebase itself, as well
>> as substantial changes to AlienBBC. Whilst it's looking like this
>> will move the design forward quite a long way, it's clearly not
>> something that's entirely in our control.
>
>
> Jules: Thanks for your candour - I'll start setting up a Linux box :-)
>

[kdf]

Quoting Jules Taplin <slim-discuss (AT) ourhouse (DOT) org.uk>:

> Erm. Right. Don't know about the white noise. I don't think I've made
> any changes that should make a difference to the non-lame path. Curious.
> I take it that if you leave it at AlienBBC 0.11, and just use the 0.10
> transcoder, it works OK for you?
>
White noise is often a sign of a wrong endian. Since the squeezebox is designed
to handled AIFF and WAV PCM input, it has to decide on big or little ending
when it starts playing. AlienBBC might have to supply the server with the
right info, somehow.
-kdf